WOORINEN extended their winning streak to four with a comprehensive 66-point win over Balranald at Greenham Park on Saturday.
The Tigers dominated for the opening stanza with a four goal-to-one opening term, before the home side bounced back to trail by just eight points at the main break. From that point on, however, it was a yellow and black tsunami, as Woorinen ran in waves to record a comfortable 18.17.125 to 9.5.59 victory.
With his side now sitting third on the ladder with a five-win, two-loss record, Woorinen coach Marcus Demaria was pleased with his side’s second half against an improving opponent.
“We were pretty happy with our second half – we started the game off pretty well, but it was just our second quarter that let us down,” Demaria said.
“We kept coughing the ball up out of defensive 50, we were progressing forward and just kept coughing it up between our half-back line and the centre and then they were just going back the other way with speed and we were being left undone with Fuller being one-on-one.
“Our aim for the day was to make sure we had a third man back there to drop off, so it left us a bit exposed when we were coughing the ball up and they were surging forward quickly – thankfully we were able to click into gear in the second half though.
“We just cleaned up our disposal coming out of our defensive 50 and just took a bit more care with our ball use in that area of the ground.
“Plus, we were getting the ball in a little bit deeper to Tom Eltringham and Lachie Gardner, which enabled our backs to press up hard – from there we tried to play front-half footy as much as we could and, with that being the case, it meant that Fuller wasn’t getting a look at it and therefore took him out of the equation.”
With Woorinen winning the ball out of the middle through Josh Domaille, Rob Miller and Jye Barry, it left Balranald without many options to get back in the contest in the second half. Patrick Veszpremi was excellent in just his second game for his new club, with his run and dash off half-back and class under pressure one of the main factors in the Tigers’ dominant second half.
This was the one element that the home side was missing – which wasn’t helped by the absence of the co-coach Jydon Neagle, who has been in ominous form over his side’s three game winning streak off half-back.
Ryan Middlebrook stepped up in his coach’s absence, as did Connor Soraggi, Jack Salau, Tom Salau and the ever-improving Drew Lloyd – while Jordan Wilkins’ battle with Arnold Kirby in the ruck was a highlight of the day, with Kirby getting the points in that battle by the full-time siren.
It wasn’t all good news for the Tigers, however, with key forward and leading goalkicker Eltringham suffering yet another hamstring strain, which will now sideline the Woorinen spearhead until after the Queen’s Birthday bye.
VOTES
3 – Josh Domaille (Woorinen)
2 – Angus Butterfield (Woorinen)
1 – Patrick Veszpremi (Woorinen)
MATCH RESULTS
BALRANALD 1.0 6.2 6.3 9.5.59
WOORINEN 4.6 6.10 12.16 18.17.125
GOALS – BALRANALD – Ben Fuller 5, Drew Lloyd 2, Colin Andrews, Connor Soraggi 1.
WOORINEN – Thomas Eltringham 4, Lachlan Gardner 3, Aaron Cadd, Adam Saunders 2, Jye Barry, Taylor Cameron, Arnold Kirby, Robbie Miller, Robert Rush, Regan Vesty, Patrick Veszpremi 1.
BEST – BALRANALD – Jack Salau, Ryan Middlebrook, Drew Lloyd, Tom Salau, Connor Soraggi, Jordan Wilkins.
WOORINEN – Josh Domaille, Angus Butterfield, Jye Barry, Arnold Kirby, Patrick Veszpremi, Robbie Miller.
